Further more, the full-of-himself, oaf of a ref, empirical umpire DARED to bark back at Pedroia something like "that's enough, or you're out of the game" when the Red Sox infielder asked him to get some help in getting that call right from the other umpires. He even stubbornly belched out that it was "his call to make" when Red Sox manager Terry Francona also pleaded with him to get the assistance from his peers on the field.

THIS IS WHY baseball sucks as much as LIFE can suck too, at times - because not only do both drag on and on, potentially for indefinite amounts of time, but both can be the stage of so many annoying ABUSES OF POWER.

They did say that baseball was an allegory of life, right?

That the nine innings it takes for completion of a game are allegorically referring to the different stages of life itself... Let's see now if there are nine of them indeed: for there are nine months of gestation, that is for sure, but nine stages after that...? Not so sure! Let's see now: early infancy, first steps, pre-school/kindergarten, first grade, the rest of the little school jungle and associated growing pains, high school and more growing pains, the ol' college try, first few jobs and a taste of the real world out there, weariness and retirement... OKAY, I AM CONVINCED!

Death would be the tenth stage - the final stage? Not quite the final, if you know better - as I do! But that is another story... (Death being number 10 is a story in itself indeed; but a "perfect ten" -the kind that Bo Derek purportedly was- it definitely is NOT. That debate is for another blog though...)

Baseball games being allegories for our LIVES, thus, umpires represent the flawed authority figures that we have floating all around us, oppressing us and pressing us to do MORE, whatever "more" is... Telling us to shut our mouths when injustice is flagrant. ORDERING US to accept their decisions, when their decisions are totally, entirely, completely OFF THE MARK!!!

Such debilitating incompetence shall not be suffered with impunity ANYMORE.

MARTY FOSTER - you're a marked man!

Just like Tim Tschida (uh - SIDA??! Stay away from me, plague!) is one...

Who's Tim Tschida, you ask?
Another inept umpire made famous through infamy when he blew a call (purposefully?) in one of those epic Red Sox-Yankess series of significance - an ALCS, no less! American League Championship Series, for those who might not know... The year was 1999 and Tschida was the second base umpire for that pivotal game 4, see? He totally blew the call when he effectively did the opposite of his cronie Marty today. It was in the eighth inning, and then Red Sox star Jose Offerman beat the defensive throw and was clearly NOT tagged by Yankees second-baseman Chuck Knoblauch (Knowyucch as he is known in these parts). Yet, Tschida saw a tag where there wasn't one and called Offerman out, which also occasionated an inning-ending double play that preserved the slim Yankee 3-2 lead in that game. "Knoblauch clearly whiffed on the tag" everyone concurs nowadays, even Tschida - but back then, the call was not reviewed, not even questioned, and it stood. And the Yankees stole that series, too.

The significance of that game, and the fact that the opponent was the hated New York bunch of scoundrels, angered the Fenway faithful much more then this latest injustice with Marty versus Dustin. Tschida's call against Offerman enraged the fans and within seconds they pelted the filed with all sorts of debris. Then Yankees manager Joe Torre was forced to pull his team into the dugout - for he knew how right the crowd was... More than anyone else, more than Tschida certainly, Torre knew that his team was stealing victory right there and then. But what else to do when you are offered such an opportunity? You take it, that's all. Hence the greater allegorical value of baseball in regards to everyday life - but let's not get too much into that here and now!

NESN's Tony Lee recapped that, for this latest series of injustices (the Boston Red Sox-Chicago White Sox series, in other words) and for the final game of that three-game set, the repeat offenders would be reunited: "Bill Welke (was) calling balls and strikes at Fenway Park, where the Red Sox and Chicago White Sox (met) in the second of three straight games.
Crew chief Tim Tschida (was) at first base, Mike Estabrook at second and Marty Foster at third."

Wow - Tschida AND Foster - one wondered immediately what insanely off-call Estabrook might make, one day, in order to complete this Three Stooges picture...? But, in all fairness, he didn't do it right there and then...

One can still wonder though how many more missed calls and victories it will cost the Red Sox before Tschida and Foster are permanently OUT. But then home plate umpire Welke could retire every big bat on the Sox line-up on a flurry of called third strikes and outdo the "unperformances" of the other two just like that.

And, again, we haven't seen what blown calls Estabrook is capable of, yet - him and the hundreds of other umpires waiting in the wings...!

In other words, the problem is not one or a bunch of inept individuals such as referees who refuse to use all that is at their disposal in order to circumvent their flawed perception of things and get things RIGHT.

The problem is THE SYSTEM.

And nobody wants to change the system - it works fine, up to a certain very defined and limited degree, but it works up until that point, so the attitude is LET IT FLY...

The allegorical reach of this, now, is tremendous: for it is applicable to virtually every strata of society: be it the financial structures, scientific contingent or the overall governing systems (usually so-called democratic capitalism) that are preferred in the world.

ALL are flawed - ALL prove to be inadequate, ultimately.

Yet all will remain in place as long as a certain elite profits from it, as it convinces the rest of us that it is all for our greater collective good, also, to stick with it...


Speaking of sticking to systems - baseball is not the only allegory to life there is, you know that... Any other sport could be seen as such - most notably HOCKEY. It is called 'ice hockey', yes, for those of you in fairer climates, true...

Believing in a system is great as long as it keeps producing the desired results for all parties involved - an example of that is the Boston Bruins' employ of defensive-minded coach Claude Julien's game plan. It was executed to perfection for two consecutive games (the decisive game seven against the Tampa Bay Lightning, which crowned the Boston Bruins as the Eastern Conference Champions, and the first game of the Stanley Cup Finals against the Western champs, the Vancouver Canucks.) And yet, it yielded two different results, yet eeriely similar: both times, it was a 1-0 final score. The Bruins won the first game, of course, but lost the second - DOING THE EXACT SAME THING, TO PERFECTION (it must be emphasized, again...)

Even the (so-called) experts admit it, and can hardly explain it:




One word here about those so-called experts now - Barry Melrose, I hate you, too! Here is the expert who picked the Boston Bruins to LOSE in every single round (except, perhaps, the first round against the Canadiens - but that's not for sure) and NOW, he's "Captain Positive" for the Boston cause...

Can we be any more two-faced, any more of a turncoat than this?
Not to mention any more of a bandwagon jumper...!

Melrose didn't see how the Boston Bruins could even HOPE to defeat the Philadelphia Flyers in the second round - the Bruins swept them in four straight.

Melrose saw no chance in hell for the Bruins to get past the speedier, "more talented roster" of the Tampa Bay crew. Boston prevailed in that one too, shutting out their allegedly "more talented" offense NOT ONCE BUT TWICE in order to win the series and advance to the Finals.

I forget what he said about the first round, really - I wasn't even listening! But, knowing Melrose, he looked at the regular season statistics and decided that the Montreal Canadiens, being ever the pests in the Boston Bruins' sides, were too quick and too confident (not to mention that they harbored too much hatred for the B's) NOT TO be able to steal yet another series they didn't deserve to even be in for starters...

And now it is this same Melrose who predicted that the Boston Bruins would win the Stanley Cup in FOUR STRAIGHT...?

Immediately, we see how his turnaround jinxed things, hopefully only temporarily for the Bruins - the B's do everything right (as he describes himself, and so he should, in the above video) except scoring the game's lone goal as they had done versus Tampa in their previous game - and so they drop that one.

SO NOW, Melrose adjusts and predicts the Bruins win will be in FIVE games. Yeah, give me FIVE, Barry...!

That was *my* prediction all along - but I wanted to see the Bruins take a game right away. And see the Bruins take the wind out of the bandwagon-hopping tools that are the Vancouver Green Men - and you! I wanted to see the delusions of grandeur of Vancouver totally demolished from the get-go. I wanted to see the Boston Bruins take game ONE.

As it is, the uncertainty remains overall.
I'll blame Barry Melrose for THAT!

However, the Boston Bruins can and must fulfill their destiny, which has been apparent ever since Peter Chiarelli, Cam Neely, Claude Julien, Zdeno Chara and Tim Thomas have become the pillars of the team.

And that system they have?
Well, since everyone else is sticking to theirs, for good or bad, certainly so will the Boston Bruins...! For every trend there is an exception - if most systems are viscerally flawed, this one has got to be the exception (hey - it got the job done versus three extremely execrable enemies: Montreal, Philadelphia and Tampa! One more, Boston - one more!)

BRUINS IN 5 it is! (Well, 5 or 7 - only the ultimate result counts, eh?)

And may no referee interfere with that lest he wants to MORRER...!

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Labels: baseball, hockey, LIFE, sports